Home/Oregon Supreme Court/Rolfe v. Northwest Cattle & Resources, Inc.

Rolfe v. Northwest Cattle & Resources, Inc.

491 P.2d 195, 260 Or. 590, 1971 Ore. LEXIS 344
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 1, 1971
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 491 P.2d 195 (Rolfe v. Northwest Cattle & Resources, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rolfe v. Northwest Cattle & Resources, Inc., 491 P.2d 195, 260 Or. 590, 1971 Ore. LEXIS 344 (Or. 1971).

Opinion

TONGUE, J.

This is an action for damages for breach of a contract for the sale of some 2,000 head of cattle in Harney County. Defendant counterclaimed for damages, alleging that plaintiffs had breached the same contract. After a trial before a jury, a verdict and *593 judgment was entered in favor of defendant, but awarding no damages. Plaintiffs appeal.

The primary problem presented on this appeal involves the interpretation of a printed form contract, which was furnished by plaintiffs’ cattle buyer and filled out by him on the wing of an airplane, where it was signed by him and by defendant’s manager.

The contract provides for the sale of the cattle at an agreed price per head, totaling over $600,000, depending upon the final count and after “all unmerchantable out.” Twenty thousand dollars was paid as a down payment, with “the balance of the purchase price to be paid on delivery of the cattle.”

The contract then provided that “delivery to be made by April 1/70 at the Buyer’s option at Ranch F.O.B. trucks/cars, * * However, at the bottom of the form contract, under the printed heading “Remarks,” the following was inserted: “After April first —Buyer pays feed bill at $20 ton if Ranch deal is not completed.” (Emphasis added) ①

Plaintiffs assign as error the instruction of the trial court to the jury that, as a matter of law, the contract required both delivery and payment by April 1, 1970. The basis for that contention by plaintiffs is not that the contract was ambiguous and that the intended meaning of its terms should have been submitted to the jury for decision based upon evidence of the circumstances and conversations between the parties at the time of its execution. On the contrary, plaintiffs contend that these terms of the contract should have been interpreted, as a matter of law, to the effect that plaintiffs had a “buyer’s option” to

*594

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
491 P.2d 195, 260 Or. 590, 1971 Ore. LEXIS 344, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rolfe-v-northwest-cattle-resources-inc-or-1971.